WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Networks) is a personal, short distance, low power and low cost wireless area network for connecting devices.

They are used for short range communication (< 10 m) for multimedia applications like cameras, PDAs, printers, bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1), high data rate (IEEE 802.15.3).

They are used for low cost sensor networks Zigbee (802.15.4).

The main functions for using WPAN are:

a. To avoid the cable connections for short range communication.

b. To decrease or use no infrastructure.

c. Device interoperability

The IEEE 802.15 working group has been formed to develop WPAN standards for portable and mobile computing device like cell phones, pagers, PCs, printers, PDAs, etc.

The different WPAN technologies and applications are: -

Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1) – It has throughput of 1 Mbps. It is used for applications like microphones, speakers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), handheld PCs, headphones, laptops, modems, and cell phones.

UWB HR-WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3) – It supports high data rates (> 20 Mbps). It is used in digital imaging and multimedia applications